Chapter 3: Overarching Plans for the Galaxy (Part 3: The Future and a New Hope)
"Mordin… How would you feel about creating two new types of FTL travel?", I paused for dramatic build up, showing a grin. "Both of which can easily revolutionize space combat?".
Remember how I said that the writers dropped the ball on FTL and that I'd decrypt it later? Yeah, it's time for that. Now, the first thing we've got to do is establish why FTL travel is widely considered to be impossible. Firstly, you've got to keep in mind that, when talking about the "speed of light", light doesn't have much to do with anything. Light, or photons, is just one of the first things we've known that goes at the cosmic speed limit, which should really be called the Speed of Causality. Something else that goes at such a speed is gravitational waves.
Then, with that out of the way, the crucial reason why FTL travel is considered impossible is because, the closer you get to the cosmic speed limit, the more energy you need to spend in order to go faster. So, it's easier to go from .001c to .9c than to go from .9c (90%) to .99c (99%). This happens due to relativity messing everything up at those insane speeds. Remember that equation for kinetic energy that I used before? It breaks down, turning mostly useless. We have to use an equation that calculates rest mass and relativistic mass, like this: relativistic mass = rest mass / (sqrt(1 - v²/c²)). What happens if the velocity (v) reaches the speed of causality? Well, "v²/c²" then solve for "1", which results in the square root of 0 (1 - 1) and, as such, rest mass must be divided by zero, resulting in relativistic mass becoming infinite. This also means we'd need infinite energy to even get there in the first place, since, in the famous equation of Einstein, "E=MC²", mass (m) would be infinite.
As you can see, as long as any object has mass (any mass at all!), it'd need infinite energy to "only" reach the speed of causality. So, when the Codex states that FTL drives work by reducing "...the mass of an object, such as a starship, to a point where velocities faster than the speed of light are possible.", it's talking pure gibberish. Moreover, even if the SSV Normandy managed to get itself to "0" mass, it'd "only" reach the same speed that light goes at in a vacuum (c), not one bit faster. And probably burst into a bazillion photons too! It'd never be possible to go faster than light with merely a reduction of mass. Besides that, going at FTL speeds would also break causality, allowing for time travel. Why? Because of time dilation. Oversimplifying it, the faster you go, the less time goes for you – and it basically stops altogether at "c". So, going faster than "c" would mean going backwards in time!
Notice how I didn't say going FTL isn't possible in the MEU, only that such a thing would not happen with merely a reduction of mass, like the Codex stated. For the longest time, I thought that FTL travel in the OT actually worked by lowering the mass/energy density until it was negative, while also preventing time travel issues from happening, somehow. It was only recently, after reading again and trying to make sense of things, that I understood the way in which it really worked. Personally, I blame the writers, who should have been much clearer with their explanations, because the way they wrote is confusing. Let's just take a look at one quote that shows it: "[FTL] drives use element zero cores to reduce the mass of a ship, allowing higher rates of acceleration. This effectively raises the speed of light within the mass effect field, allowing high speed travel with negligible relativistic time dilation effects." (highlighted). I'm sorry, what!? It's basically saying "eezo makes mass get lower, so light is now faster". This doesn't follow logically! It's a non sequitur. Maybe they're implying that photons get "lighter" (negative?) and this somehow affects the speed of causality, which is nonsense, because photons are massless due to them not interacting with the Higgs field and, if you paid attention, because light itself has nothing to do with the cosmic speed limit (like gravitational waves)! Plus, even if you take that for granted, 'cause it's a magic space rock we're dealing with, that still means eezo is capable of altering the speed of causality, effectively creating some sort of pocket Universe/Dimension where spacetime and/or a universal constant is different.
Yet, this is the only way in which FTL travel would actually be possible in the MEU. And the "confirmation" for this being true is hidden in the Codex page for how a certain object's appearance would be at FTL speeds, from the inside and outside perspectives. Because that's really where people would be looking to understand how your FTL system works, amirite? It's not in the main page for FTL, where it should've been! Anyway, the parts that matter state: "As the subjective speed of light is raised within the field, objects outside will appear to redshift, eventually becoming visible only to radio telescope antennas."; "If within a field that allows travel at twice the speed of light, any radiation it emits has twice the energy as normal. If the ship is in a field of about 200 times lightspeed, it radiates visible light as x-rays and gamma rays, and the infrared heat from the hull is blue-shifted up into the visible spectrum or higher.".
So, yeah, the bubble that envelops starships raises the "speed of light" within themselves. This is the actual answer for FTL. Eezo can make the speed of causality become, let's say, a million times its normal value in a local/localized piece of spacetime. Remember the stuff about how the awesomeness of eezo is that it either lowers or increases mass? Useless! The actual kickass attribute of eezo (which allows FTL travel) is its magical ability to alter reality itself and multiply the cosmic speed limit to an absurd amount inside its fields (while the observer has to deal with normal, slowpoke "c", at "just" 300.000 km/s). Now, I actually consulted with a miniature Seraphim and got back that the speed of light varies based on medium, so it wouldn't be wildly insane to imagine a medium that, in some way, allows a wave to travel through it faster than another medium. In the case of Element Zero, if it somehow could make spacetime "denser" from light's point of view, then that wave could propagate faster. Maybe that's the justification?
With that in mind, let's do a mental exercise about what it means in practice. A theoretical starship with enough fuel to easily reach 50% of "c" (150.000 km/s) lazily hangs in space in much the same way that bricks don't on Earth; then, it activates the eezo core, lowering its mass to something like 1/10.000 of what it originally was, and, at the same time, creates a mass effect field which raises localized "c" to 10.000 times its normal value (so it becomes km/s). The starship starts its engines, keeps accelerating normally and the fuel still makes it reach 50% of "c", but, this time, for the Universe outside that is "observing" it, the ship is easily going at 5.000 times the speed of light/causality. Let's say it only used a little less than half of its fuel. At the halfway point of the journey, this ship must reverse its thrusters and decelerate in order to reach appropriate velocities for arriving, a situation which is confirmed by Shepard in a conversation with Marab during ME2. This is how I've understood ME FTL travel. This would also circumvent the time travel issue.
So, how do the Mass Relays really work? This very same way, only stranger. I've read all sorts of technobabble, creative and downright nonsensical "explanations" as to how these things actually work, but it becomes much easier to picture this now with my explanation. They do three things to set themselves apart from normal FTL drives, which are: 1) create a "corridor" between itself and its pair which is "virtually free" of mass, not really mattering if that means either all matter just becomes "0" or turns non-existent temporarily, but only that it doesn't burst into photons and doesn't interact with stuff on the way; 2) increase the localized speed of causality inside of this corridor by a lot (we could probably calculate by how much if the writers actually bothered to give us hard numbers rather than just saying it can transport ships "instantaneously", in only a handful of days or hours…); and 3) propels the starships that use it across space.
What does that mean in practice? Let's say you are right beside the Charon/Sol Relay and want to go to Arcturus Stream, which is 36 LY (light-years) away. You send the amount of mass to transit before your ship is moved into the approach corridor. Afterwards, the ship is now indistinguishable from light and gets propelled by the Mass Relay, so it's going at the speed of light/causality (or as fast as a photon), the new/raised one! If you reach your destination exactly one day later (24 hours), then that means you were going 12.857 times faster than "c", and this is probably how much the "subjective speed of light" was raised in the corridor. If, to make things easier to comprehend, you reach Arcturus Stream exactly one hour later, then that means you were going 308.568 times faster than normal "c". Why did I say that it must be non-interacting? Due to the fact that we'd probably hit something along the corridor (cosmic dust is everywhere in space as are other bigger objects) and the fact that it'd make the Conduit sequence kinda impossible. Remember that the Citadel arms were closed during the end of ME1, so Shepard & Co. had to have phased through them to arrive and save the day. Either that or the writers just forgot…
However, another issue rears its ugly head here: time dilation. If the Mass Relays actually turn you "massless" (while also protecting you from bursting into a trillion trillion photons), then time would simply not move for you. Even if it takes 2 hours to reach a destination by Relay, you'd personally feel like you got there instantly, right after being propelled by the thing. It'd feel like time travel, but only to the future. Clearly, the games never imply that. Time moves normally during Mass Relay transit (or normal FTL travel for that matter). In fact, the writers even make a point to assert that their method of FTL doesn't cause time dilation in the Codex. Can you see why I feel that the writers dropped the ball hard on it? All of this would mean that the Mass Relays don't reduce mass to "0", merely much, much closer to it than normal FTL drives found in starships. I've been thinking about all of this for a while and barely managed to make it not sound like utter nonsense. There's a way to get around this problem, but it's a grammatical one: we take the meaning of the word "virtually" to be nearly/almost (i.e. the Mass Relays create a corridor which is "almost" free of mass, but it still exists). That means those megastructures are just way more efficient FTL drives that can, somehow, project their bubble over hundreds of light distances with its pair in the form of a "corridor". And that's it. The latter is a difference of quality, but the former just means a quantitative difference.
This is somewhat corroborated by a randomly thrown quote from EDI, when she states that "The envelope of mass-free space we create when we travel at FTL limits any impact of microcollisions with ambient dust.". The OT uses the term "mass-free" to be equivalent to a situation in which mass is so low it almost doesn't exist. Notice how she didn't specify the method of FTL used, since "when we travel at FTL" can happen with a normal FTL drive and with a Mass Relay, but the logic still checks out.
As for the part about it "propelling the ship across space", it can be done with gravity fields tuned for acceleration… just like the "reversed kinetic barriers" idea I've brought up before. See how it all comes together? Ships are accelerated by the Mass Relay using gravity and, when they are getting closer to the other pair, it decelerates the ship with the same, but opposite, force. Therefore, the Reapers have probably used that concept in their tech, but only for the Mass Relays, not for their weapons systems. You know… it's no wonder they chose Cerberus to act as their "agents" in this cycle. After all, "great minds" think alike. There must've been something about those usually comically incompetent, except when abnormally hyper-competent (like when finding the Derelict Reaper), morally gray, but totally evil, terrorists that just struck a chord with the giant space cuttlefish.
Then, you may ask, what happens if the FTL drive fails? If the mass effect field collapses (for any reason) while the ship is moving at FTL speeds, then there are two ways in which the Universe can deal this: 1) it doesn't give much of a fuck, so the ship going beyond the normal "c" becomes non-interacting, basically turning into a cluster of tachyons, and also collapses into a black hole, but this black hole is going above the speed of causality, so it effectively can't interact with anything, since, by the time its gravity touches something, it's already long gone, otherwise it'd be the ultimate weakly interacting massive particle; or 2) it spasms and forces the ship to snap back to sublight velocity, with the enormous excess energy being shed in the form of lethal Cherenkov radiation. The first hypothetical scene was told to me by a small Seraphim. The MEU, on the other hand, works in the second way, with catastrophic effects. It's in the Codex. What isn't, however, is what occurs when the ship is going, let's say, .9999c from the outside spacetime perspective and shuts down the FTL drive. Figuring out this stuff is important to determine how FTL ramming happens under the rules of this Universe, which will matter in the future, so keep that in mind.
So, then, this is (probably) one of the best explanations of how FTL and Mass Relay travel works in the Mass Effect Universe (Hopefully, my dear readers, this had brought you closer to the basic knowledge that a MEverse character would have on the topic and allow us to engane in jolly co-operation in the comments section!). As for how our crew handled the idea of new forms of FTL...
"You have knowledge about two new types of FTL travel!?", Mordin reacted as calmly as one would expect from him hearing about my implications. "Is it from your Universe? No, wouldn't work. Different physical laws. Hopeful, but can't count that it will work in this Universe.".
"Well… it should be from this Universe too. You see, before the 21st century, many human scientists tried to come up with ways to beat the cosmic speed limit. One of those solutions was that, instead of just going FTL somehow, changing the limit of the Speed of Causality or even going through some different dimension where the laws of physics were different, they thought 'why don't we just shrink or fold spacetime instead?'.", I told them the gist of it, which is really just a different way of looking at the issue. "For example, if the distance between point A to point B is reduced from 20 million kilometers to 20 meters "bridge", you can go from A to B in an instant without going FTL. That would later be called an Einstein-Rosen Bridge, in memory of the scientists that came up with the idea, but it's more known as a 'Wormhole'. And they were mathematically predicted by Einstein's theory of general relativity. There was only one problem with this solution though: it needs something called exotic matter, which is basically negative mass or negative energy density, to work…".
"Creative solution. Change of perspective.", Mordin complimented the concept. "Can see why unsuccessful until now, though. And why was abandoned after discovery of Prothean cache on Mars. Safe FTL method already developed. More to say, right?".
"Yeah... Now, think of all the crazy stuff we can do with Element Zero: lift people as if gravity had taken a vacation, or just throw them away with a push, halt/decelerate incoming projectiles with a barrier, control gravity fields to do all sorts of things, like a singularity.", I mentioned just some of the things one could do with eezo, merely for illustration. "However, what is important to consider right now is that it can create cushions of antigravity, meaning negative mass is possible or, at the very least, that negative energy densities in a vacuum is a thing with eezo. Then, what is it that Einstein-Rosen bridges need again?".
"Negative mass.", he mumbled while realization hit him like a truck. "Or negative energy densities. Doesn't matter which…".
"Therefore, we can use eezo to create traversable and controllable Wormholes. Or the keep them open, since that was the insurmountable hurdle.", I put into words the conclusion he'd probably figured out already. "Now, imagine a weapon's system that utilizes this. You get a few drones capable of combining/connecting and creating the wormholes and send half of them to the front of your ship and the other half towards the enemy fleet. Then, they 'link' to open up a wormhole, you fire a full salvo on it and close the thing before the enemy can even react. All of this from light-seconds, light-minutes or even light-hours of distance! What could the Reapers do besides take a beating?".
"So simple! Was close to us all along and we missed it!", Mordin exclaimed, with an almost despondent tone. "Removes reliance on Mass Relay Network. Basis of galactic civilization. Also, trivializes many fleet doctrines. What about other method of FTL? Also invented by pre-interstellar age humans?".
"You know it! It's called an 'Alcubierre Drive', otherwise known as a 'Warp Drive'.", I said to him with a smile. "Its principle boils down to contracting spacetime in front of the starship and expanding spacetime behind it. Basically, you create a bubble of spacetime and a hill, or slope, and slide down it, moving as it moves with you. You have what is almost a black hole at the front and a white hole at the back of your ship, which I think is metal as fuck. Instead of bowing to the speed limit of causality, we tell it to take a hike and make friends with spacetime. This, however, also requires negative energy density and, as such, exotic matter or manipulation of dark energy. Maybe there's also the issue of Hawking radiation buildup, but I think eezo covers that for us.".
Those two are things we can look at and end up wondering just why the heck wasn't it invented in the MEU. Here, in our boring FTL no-fly zone, there are a lot of scientists or other crazy people trying to get traversable wormholes and warp drives working even without needing stuff like exotic matter – and some even claim it'd be possible, eventually. However, in that Universe, where a space magic rock exists and does magic stuff, the humans just glance over it, ignore it and turn to "Prothean" schematics for FTL, going "Ooh, shiny!". It's one of the reasons why I think that there's something wrong with the development of the Systems Alliance's humans. And eezo really does solve the problems with those two FTL methods. Even without the explanation about antigravity, it still manipulates dark energy, which is described as "a hypothetical form of energy that exerts a negative, repulsive pressure, behaving like the opposite of gravity.".
On another note, I personally think that the SSV Normandy's Tantalus Drive Core is a halfway point towards an Alcubierre Drive, a situation no one noticed, as it basically works by generating mass concentrations that the ship "falls into", allowing it to move without the use of heat-emitting thrusters. Plus, here's a little bit of trivia for you: Kett starships (the disposable bad guys from Mass Effect: Andromeda that exist only for us to shoot) have FTL drives that function like Alcubierre drives over longer distances than within a Star Cluster. It's right in the wiki. So, a warp drive is possible, which means negative mass or, at least, negative energy densities are a thing, meaning traversable wormholes are also possible in the MEU.
There was silence for almost half a minute. Mordin was in his "thinking mode", so none of us wanted to interrupt the Professor.
"How fast?", he suddenly asked. "And how much energy needed?".
"I have no idea about the Alcubierre Drive, since speed is kind of determined by how much you can warp spacetime…", I answered, admitting my limited knowledge on it, "…but the Wormholes should be pretty quick, close to instant. All that is required is enough energy to open up the portal, which probably isn't very high for smaller distances, and shouldn't really be an issue for us by then. Now, what we need to talk about is space. More importantly, how we are going to apply all of these changes to it.".
Here, I paused, taking a really good look around the trio while gathering my thoughts about the part that was, perhaps, the most tactically valuable part of the preparation. Even if the ground was uncontested, it would be worthless without having ways to chase and hurt the Reapers in space, while they could just stop bothering about the "harvest" and bombard everything from low orbit. My three companions braced themselves for what would surely be just as much as a breakdown of this galaxy's common sense and "normal".
"Well, for starters, we have to rethink how to do battles in space. Change the rules of the game, if you will.", I confirmed their assumption, then sighed again. "Forgive me for saying this, but the way you guys are doing space warfare is also kinda stupid. It's like we are still in World War 1 back on Earth, then humans came along with their 'revolutionary' tactics which just boiled down to upping things from WW1 to WW2 naval warfare due to the addition of carriers. Am I wrong?".
That was more of a rhetorical question, but I still gave them some time to give a response, which they didn't, surprisingly, maybe because they started to share the feeling. Either that or they were more interested in hearing what I had to say about the topic.
"Well, here goes nothing. Warships main weapons are mostly just mass accelerators, with you guys almost not even bothering to develop other types of weaponry, like proper laser systems (perhaps nuclear pumped or blueshifted with eezo), gravity based ones by (once again) utilizing eezo in creative ways, particle beams, etc. And you don't even get creative with those slugs, some of which are even 20kg, by adding stuff like pressurized deuterium, so it'd go nuclear when decelerated by enemy shields. This means that fleet engagements usually play out as artillery duels, while the two sides try to get closer whilst their bow guns face the enemy.", I ripped right through this nonsense just like those Geth drones ripped through Jenkins' shields on Eden Prime. "Wait, forget what I've said. In a way, it's even more backwards than naval warfare, because, unlike your space warships, battleship main guns aren't limited to firing only at what's in front of them. There's almost no use of true 3D tactics. Heck, you guys still rely on manned fighters, rather than just use drones. Electronic Counter Measures are also barely used, if at all. And the best part? The losing side can just rabbit to FTL and it's over. You've got no sensors capable of tracking them or weapons that could hurt them, when this could've easily been stopped by just having a few drones block the enemy's path.".
If the massive list of problems wouldn't do it, that last part got through to them. It was so simple, so easy. Just design some kind of machine (it didn't have to be a "drone") to dodge the pathetic 10 km (or 60 km of the salarian ships) range of GARDIAN lasers. Even if there was no FTL plotter to get in the way, the enemy ship would still destroy itself in a haze of Cherenkov radiation by hitting it after engaging the FTL drive. All of this is merely what I know. More knowledgeable people could probably point out more stuff.
Then, after starting the topic in a bombastic way, we began discussing it, with me offering ideas for fleet doctrines and warship compositions. It all started with the drones, of course. They'd be multirole craft, working in literal swarms, but not networked together. That's just asking to be hacked by the Reapers. No, they'll mostly be linked only to their controller. Their roles could be divided into offensive, defensive and miscellaneous. In offense, we'll have Fighter-Drones, all equipped with gravity based accelerators, maybe Mirror-Drones, which would bounce back laser fire, Missile-Bus-Drones (self explanatory) and EW-Drones (electronic warfare). Defense will include many types, but the most prevalent being the Shield-Drones, projecting gravity wells, and the FTL-Interceptor-Drones, as already hinted. Miscellaneous will include everything else that was not the other types, like Repair-Drones filled with micro-machines, Mining-Drones that'll assume the role of robo-miners of the MEU, getting raw materials/restocking supplies, and Wormhole-Drones, which serve as mobile "portals" for all sorts of uses.
Then, we get to the first types of proper warships: Corvette and Destroyer. Although they still function as escort and screen ships, that role will be slowly filled by the next generation of drones, which those vessels carry in good quantity. Their size will range from 50 to 200 meters and, despite having firepower comparable to the range of a modern Dreadnought, thanks to their main gun being a compact gravity based mass accelerator repurposed from kinetic barriers, their targets are mostly the smaller Reapers. Each one of them, especially the Destroyers, will carry Fabrication Engines capable of restarting our industrial base and repairing the fleet. Additionally, some of them will be built with Warp Drive based stealth systems for the roles of scouting/assasination, though making sure that no gravitational waves would be released was a priority. When fighting Reapers is concerned, our motto should be "there's no kill like overkill".
The next type of warship is the Battleship, the backbone of the next fleet, since it's an effective counter to Capital-class Reapers. Ranging from a minimum of 600 meters, with a soft maximum of 1 kilometer, a single Battleship can carry enough firepower to fight off the entire Citadel Defense Fleet, without support, and survive, or wipe out a lone fleet from a Council race. That's true not only due to the types of "torpedoes" it carries, but because of the "broadside" mounted gravity based mass accelerators that basically hit as hard as the modern Dreadnoughts of most species. Moreover, considering the size of these vessels, E-Reactors will scale very well as an unlimited source of power, with traditional forms of energy generators being enhanced by eezo for high-energy tasks. This also means more "expensive" forms of weaponry in the MEU, such as big particle beams, becomes viable choices as main armaments, if we want.
Based on the Battleships are the Drone Carriers, which supersedes those Carriers that the Alliance has introduced to the galaxy. Their role is much like the Battleship, but they are also massive factories with enough mobility to not be completely vulnerable in battle. Due to their size, however, they almost always have an axial mounted hypervelocity launcher which they use to fire Fighter-Drones at enemy Capital Ships. Despite mostly staying back during fleet engagements, there's another type of warship that stands even farther, acting as actual artillery during battles, the Kinetic-Stars. Their high-powered long range weapons annoy enemy fleets before battle even begins and to pound planets from a safe distance. The name comes from the idea that they should stay far away from the main battle, being indistinguishable from the stars in the void of space, since they are just a weapon, shields and an engine to create a lightweight, highly mobile sniper. We would also try to create Laser-Stars and Particle-Stars. Lastly, there's the Death-Star, which "launches" FTL missiles at targets. Those need to stay far enough away so that the projectile accelerates and its impact does the intended damage.
One thing that will be present in all of the new warships is that each and every one of them is built with omni-directional movement in mind. Thus, they aren't just gun shaped hunks of metals that exist merely to fire at what's in front, moving mostly forwards and turning with difficulty. Once again, we are not having naval battles in space. Our fleet should be able to dodge in all directions. Besides that, our warships will have, at the very least, hulls equal to Silaris Armor. I'm very curious to learn about just how useful the material Mass Relays are made of actually was, something we'll surely figure out after disassembling a few of them (or by just salvaging the Prothean research on the Conduit). Kinetic Barriers will be developed to deflect incoming projectiles rather than just stopping them, which is a very inefficient and dumb way of going at it. With actual unlimited energy, all that's left is to get a handle on the problem of static electrical charge buildup, an issue that was solved by the folks of the Andromeda Initiative with the creation of the ODSY Drive. We, on the other hand, have Steve to poke around, so it's even better.
"So, yeah… That's basically it for the moment. And any of that can be changed or will most likely be changed, being perfected with time.", I wrapped up the bulk of the new fleets. "All the work related to fleets will henceforth be referred to as part of the Project Space Force. Its an overarching project that'll probably never really end.".
"That's… quite a lot of changes.", Thane summarized his thoughts. "This is a completely outside of the normalcy. If the Alliance had these.. concepts back during their first contact with the Turians, things would've been completely different for the whole galaxy.".
"I agree. But each ship has a part to play, from the smallest to the biggest.", Liara commented, turning towards him. "And they all complement each other in their own ways.".
"Different warship ideas and fleet doctrine. Meant to fight Reapers. But will still shake balance of galactic power heavily.", Mordin added. "Still, curious about something. How to make drones more deadly in space?".
"You know how the use of nuclear weapons is banned in Council Space, right?", I brought up a seemingly random point. "That is very, very stupid. Just because they can do a lot of ecological damage to planets doesn't mean that you not only have to abandon any development on that technological path, but make it illegal altogether. Ignoring it because it's 'primitive' is also not a good argument. At the very least, one should try to make nukes less damaging to the environment. Anyways, to make not only drones better overall, but pretty much all of our fleet deadlier, I'm thinking we can use and improve upon a very cool concept for a nuclear weapon from the 60s.".
"A newly developed human technology from 10 years ago?", Liara inquired, her translator probably referencing the current Alliance calendar.
"Oh, no. I'm talking about the 60s from 200 years ago!", I undid the misunderstanding. Yet, for all intents and purposes, I might have just said it's a prehistoric technology to Mordin, while Liara still considered it to be quite recent tech and Thane, well, we didn't care either way, it seemed… "It's an unintended result of Project Orion, born after a human looked at a theoretical propulsion system for spaceships that was powered by continuous nuclear explosions and went 'Wait a moment… I can weaponize that!'. Just like that, the Casaba Howitzer was born. When I left my Universe behind, it was even already somewhat outdated. What I'm think is the improved version, just keeping the name for credit's sake.".
"How does it work? Principle behind it complicated or unfeasible?", the Professor asked in clear anticipation. "No blast or thermal radiation when nukes utilized in space. Much higher frequency radiation, x-rays and gamma rays, but distance offsets that.".
"Actually, the idea is quite simple. It goes like this: what if we focused all of the 'boom' from a nuclear explosion into a relatively narrow stream of high-energy plasma? They work by converting the gamma radiation of the blast into thermal radiation and, then, imparting that energy into a material (like tungsten) as kinetic energy. Basically, it's a nuclear directed energy weapon. So, for instance, even with a very inefficient design, a 100 megaton nuke turned into a casaba howitzer will concentrate more or less 10 to 20 megatons of energy into a 1 meter radius at over 1000 kilometers. If that hits the Reaper's core or even just its eezo core, that's a very dead Reaper.", I explained with a smirk. "I have absolutely no idea why it was abandoned by the Systems Alliance, especially when taking into consideration that 'modern' GARDIAN lasers can't do a thing at those distances, which is one of the reasons I feel there's something wrong with the development of humanity in this Universe. Just think about it: why wasn't nuclear weaponry flying all over the place during the First Contact War? Regardless, we'll take the most recent design for it, improve it with current tech and mass-produce the shit out of casabas into missiles, while also utilizing eezo fields to capture and overcome any natural inefficiencies they may still have!".
"That… might actually work. Utilizes Element Zero for gravitic lensing. Many megatons deployed in an instant!", concluded Mordin. "Incredible! Why did no one think of that? Wait, no need to answer that.".
"It's probably 'cause of the whole eezo trap planned out by the Reapers.", I bluntly responded anyway, shrugging. "Mass Accelerators are simply too easy to make with eezo and, due to that, they end up being more efficient than any alternative. So, no one bothers to push something like nuclear power to the limit.".
"And what about those FTL missiles? The ones when talked about Death-Stars.", Mordin brought up another question. "Must know FTL ramming doesn't work. Have way to bypass hardcoded lock on drives?".
"Yeah, FTL ramming is impossible right now because the FTL drive of a ship refuses to fire if a significant object is in the path of a planned jump. It's hardwired to act like that, because this mechanism is inherent to the warm-up process.", I contextualized the problem before offering a solution to it. "In hindsight, that's probably the handiwork of the Reapers. The whole black box thing sorta gives it away. We could try to remove this lock, but that would probably be a hassle. But here's a different approach: how about we just change the FTL plotter to register anything, or just Reaper-like objects, as viable travel solutions?".
"Elegant solution.", Mordin complimented the idea with a nod. "Leave limitation intact, but sidesteps it. Don't waste time. Same result, less effort.".
"There's quite a bit of poetic irony too…", Thane commented, crossing his hands like usual and leaning forward. "In turning their safeguards against them.".
"Just... how come you have all these... revolutionary ideas?", Liara suddenly brought up with a frown. "Each one of them is capable of affecting the galaxy immensely. And you never seem to run out of them!".
"How I came up with these ideas? It was quite simple: I didn't. Paraphrasing Newton, if I have seen things further than you guys, it's by standing on the shoulders of giants.", I easily admitted, never wishing to take on the merit of others, but only desiring to unite them all in one package. "Liara, in my old home, there wasn't just the Mass Effect Trilogy or discussion boards. Some people would take their time and write their own fictional stories about this Universe; and some of those stories included their own ideas about how to deal with the Reapers, of course. Many of the technological 'innovations' I've revealed, which are no more than just shifts in perspective and different ways of utilizing what you already have here, come from such works, with the most relevant being 'Mass Effect: Logical Conclusions'. It hypothesizes how my version of humanity would react to this Universe's situation.".
"Wait, are you saying we'll beat the Reapers with... fanfiction?", Liara understood what I'ds aid in a different way, then started a contagious laugher, breaking the tension. "I'm sorry, it's no laughing matter when the fate of the galaxy is at stake. But I just... found it so absurd that it's funny how these genocidal machines would ultimately be defeated by people from another Universe with just too much time in their hands.".
"Such is power of knowledge. Can be difference between life and death.", Mordin said after chuckling a bit too. "Truer still in this case. Know they exist, know everything about their arrival and capabilities. Had time and many minds working to prepare countermeasures. Similiar, in a way, to STG work.".
"Ah, humans have an applicable philosophical saying that I enjoy.", Thane also returned to his stoic self after laughing a bit, showing us a bit of that good drell memory. "If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.".
"Yeah, it's basically like this. There are other stories I'd taken some inspiration from. Perhaps I could tell you guys about them another time.", I offered to them.
"There's no need right now. Don't let me take us away from the discussion we were having.", Liara decisively steered the chat back to where it was.
"Ok. Moving on... Ah, yes. I was getting to a very delice part. As you might've figured out by now, we'll need to develop 'Artificial Intelligences' for all of our preparations and plans to work.", I looked the trio dead in the eyes as I was about to supplement what I'd just said. "Properly develop them, I must emphasize!".
"That is a very dangerous undertaking.", argued Liara immediately. "Besides being banned in Council Space, AIs have a history of going rogue.".
"Liara, you saw the 'True Geth'. They weren't like that, even after almost only being shown violence and hostility.", I reminded her with knitted brows. "EDI also never went 'rogue'. In fact, she could've taken the SR2- Normandy after the Collector abduction, yet didn't.".
"That is true.", Thane chimed in. "Still, those are only two examples.".
"But they disprove the nonsense you were fed all of your lives.", I decided to hit the nail on the head, as it were. "Besides, it's not really a choice if we want to face the Reapers on our own terms and get the best outcome possible. After all, in order to support all the changes I've talked about, we'll need automation. Even if we could recruit the Geth to our side, as unlikely as that is for now due to Sovereign and its 'Heretic Geth' keeping watch, it might not be enough industrial might to realize our aspirations.".
"One problem still remains. None of us here know how to create AI.", the Professor pointed out. "Plus, can't just recruit on the extranet. Consequences… problematic.".
"Oh, don't worry about that. I've got a guy in mind that'll help a lot with the whole ordeal.", I assured him, while thinking about the game I hadn't shown to Liara. "What is really, really dangerous, and I must concur with you guys on that one, is unrestrained mind-machine interfacing. We must not follow the example of the Zha'til.".
"What happened to them?", Liara asked curiously, her memories of the conversations with Javik still somewhat blurry and his take on the events incomplete.
"The Zha were a race that existed during the time of the Protheans. In order to survive as their homeworld became inhospitable, they decided to implant themselves with symbiotic 'AI', the Zha'til, to enhance their intelligence.", I summarized what was said on the wiki in relation to the species. "When the Reaper showed up, they subjugated the Zha'til, who then took control of the bodies of their 'masters', altering their genetic material at the deepest level. I don't know what kind of spell the Reapers casted to instantly do that. Or maybe that species had zero paranoia put into their technology. Anyways, the Zha were turned into synthetic monsters and their offspring into slaves. The Zha'til proceeded to multiply into 'mechanical swarms' that 'blotted out the sky', until the Protheans novasparked them into extinction.".
Yeah, the Zha'til had turned themselves into something of a symbiotic hybrid race. Yet, the Reapers showed up, took over the "AIs", seized control of everyone and turned them into weapons that the Protheans were forced to kill. Javik probably hated "AI" because of this event of his cycle. All in all, it's a great bit of lore that manages to make the endings even stupider, since: 1) it's another synthetic race that only went to war because of the Reapers' influence on them; and 2) Synthesis was a last minute dumbass idea that the games already showed the Reapers don't give a fuck about. If Synthesis was supposed to end conflict, the Reapers shouldn't have wiped out the galaxy (or at least a species) that was already doing it.
"By the Goddess! Couldn't that happen to us too!?", questioned Liara.
"Only if we act like Zha. No precautions or safety measures.", Mordin responded. "Lesson learned. Will not happen a second time.".
"So, our mind-machine neural interfaces will have to account for that possibility. They exist only to allow better control of tech and to promote better understanding between organic and digital life-forms, as a form of technological melding.", I offered them a concept so that the trio could comprehend the direction we ought to develop towards. "We must make our technologies 'air-tight', with full on paranoia that they will get hacked. Those drones, for instance, aren't networked. The maximum we'll do is to allow a temporary 'merging' of the soldier and/or fleet captain with their digital partner in order to share intel and battle plans, but within safe parameters (only thoughts are shared, with no control over each other's bodies and/or minds).".
"That is better, but it's still not something we should do without a good plan in mind.", Liara admitted, to which I nodded in agreement.
"New forces and technologies covered.", Mordin put an end to that topic. "What to do with rest of the galaxy?".
"It's not just with better weapons that we beat the Reapers, but by also winning hearts and minds. The Shadow Broker was known for hoarding the biggest vault of information in the galaxy. However, I think it's time to start controlling the flow of information ourselves.", I set the tone of the next topic differently than what I've done so far and certainly much more bond villain-esque. "This brings me to what I like to call Project Cultural Victory. Its goal is to try to influence galactic politics by guiding popular opinion. With it, we can do a lot of things, such as ease human integration in the galactic community, make people think about the problems their governments don't want them to question, like 'Why do we allow a slaver nation to exist and take our people?' or 'Why must we hate AI?', and, more importantly, not let polities like the Citadel Council just sweep the Reapers under the rug until they are right here, obliterating our homes. The media industry has always sought ways to provoke thought and discussion in their audiences. And there are many old human works that hit such notes.".
"Right about last part. Media has such power.", replied Mordin. "However, current human entertainment media not impressive. Prefer older vids, such as Gilbert and Sullivan.". That was Mordin, alright, and it did put a smile on my face.
"This is something very… different.", said Liara.
"In fact, TIM had the right idea here. He set up a lot of media companies for messaging and PR campaigns, even using Shepard to drive recruiting.", I mentioned in passing. "We can do something similar to it, while adding our own touch. At first, we only release some old human vids that hit well with the public, create a reputation with that and, then, expand into other areas of media, like news broadcasts.".
"Wait a moment... we can't let Cerberus become a problem, right?", suggested Thane, abruptly shifting the topic to those Saturday Morning Cartoon Villains.
"Yes, they should be dismantled while we still have time!", exclaimed Liara, now remembering all the shit we go through because of the bastards.
"Well, why uproot them when we can do a 'hostile takeover'?", I put forward a daring idea, doing a fake cough before continuing. "I'm not talking about taking over the terrorist part of the organization, but the paramilitary side of things, with all the resources and not-totally evil personel, if you catch my drift… Liara, don't you remember Miranda Lawson? What do you think of her?".
"Very cold, calculating, ruthless and professional. She rapidly climbs the rankings and becomes the second-in-command of the organization. Also, she truly believes in the goals that Cerberus claims to uphold, of bettering humanity.", our dear archaeologist dug into her new memories and started explaining to Thane and Mordin. "But she does have a good side as well, as we can see when dealing with her sister, Oriana, and when she changes her mind after meeting Shepard.".
"That's true. So, here's my idea: we keep tabs on them for now, preventing a few tragedies from happening where we can, gather evidence of their wrongdoings, infiltrate some of our people inside and, when the time is ripe and some good projects of theirs are completed, like EDI, we'll hit them on all levels simultaneously.", I suggested a plan of action to deal a lethal blow to Cerberus, one that I felt worked best against that damned paramilitary group. Just destroying some cells wouldn't cut it, since TIM could bring the organization back at any time. One needs to cut the head and burn the body at the same time to get rid of it. "If we can have Miranda take a look at all the stuff that TIM had been hiding from her, the Reaper threat and the fact that her 'boss' is slowly being indoctrinated, that'd probably get her to help us do it from the inside. For the time being, however, we can fight TIM from the shadows. In the canonical sequence of events, the Shadow Broker and Cerberus were always butting heads against each other anyway. This will be called Project Heracles. Just like in the myth, we'll defeat Cerberus and take control of it.".
"Can we contact her without The Illus-, TIM getting suspicious?", Thane inquired.
"There's no rush on that front. She's still too young and inexperienced today. If we got to her right now, it'd likely result in recruiting someone that can't help us much or causing her death.", I calmed their restlessness with that fact. "Therefore, we can wait for her to reach out on her own, possibly through one of our new front companies, or contact her when we are better established.".
"Ah, reminds of something. Talked about companies when looking for Derelict Re-, Steve.", the Professor brought up all of a sudden. "Few suggestions back then. More now?".
"We can do what I've suggested back then, Mordin: leverage information from companies and invest into those that'll make it big in the future.", I mentioned it to the other two, who hadn't heard about it yet. "However, our best bet is to create our own front companies and tie them all into a Corporation. Also, this will let us accomplish three things all at once: prepare the galaxy by selling better weaponry and technology to it, get capital back to fund our own operations and openly acquire and/or use all kinds of technologies that would, otherwise, cause people to raise questions, like QEC. In fact, I've already thought about some names…".
"What are you scheming?", Liara asked with an amused expression, noticing the slight grin on my face.
"Oh, nothing at all. So, names. I've got three of them for the companies. The first is 'Per Aspera Ad Astra'. Its main market is guns, lots of guns!", I began talking before she could figure out anything. They'll never find out the truth, muahaha! "So, we can include in its stock Thanix weaponry, new high-tech weapons and armor, mechs/drones for guard duty, better warship shields and hull materials, and less dumb heatsinks. Since they are mostly used for combat, biotics implants and amps are also products we focus on here, as are the 'allowed' cybernetics. Those are just off the top of my head.".
"Ah, through hardships, to the stars. Fitting name.", Mordin commented.
"Then, we get a little more risky, but only if we go at it like idiots. The second company will be called VersaLife. Its main focus is biotechnology and nanotechnology.", I tried to keep my expression neutral while saying that. "It does anything from cloning to nanomaterials, which are mostly supplied to Ad Astra. Included here are pharmaceuticals, military grade gene-mods and nanomedicine. Of course, only the 'legal' stuff will be publicly shown and sold, while we keep/hide the cutting edge tech. This is to justify where our own forces got their next-gen augments. Unfortunately, we need to do this because the would-be-leaders of the galaxy are determined to sink it into eternal stagnation.".
"I see. We'll set it up in some place like Noveria, right?", Liara asked. "It would also let us keep a close watch on Binary Helix.".
"No! Why? That's just declaring to the whole galaxy that we're doing some shady stuff.", I shot down the idea immediately, shaking my head. "On the contrary. This is going to be a really big and public company, because the first 'products' to hit the market are going to be tailor-made (cloned) puppies and kittens. Ha, we could probably take over the galaxy with that alone! Or by developing dextro-based ice cream! Jokes aside, we'll use the cloning tech to save extinct or endangered species, to heal injuries or to grow lost limbs and so on. There's also the potential development of colonization products, such as better food and food synthesizers. We'll project an image of using 'dangerous' technologies for good, hopping on the bandwaggon of medi-gel.".
"I see. That could work, but we'd be walking on a thin line.", Liara gave me her opinion, to which I nodded. "We can't be careless.".
"Lastly, there's the media company. I'm thinking the name 'Old But Gold' would do fine.", I revealed to them a name that was more of a placeholder, since I sucked at naming things. "It's the first company we can make, since, at the start, it's just going to adapt already made human movies, music and games to the galaxy standard. Afterwards, we can start news channels and programs to improve our image and/or light the fire for some discussions, hiding some of our agents there. Maybe even make our own movies and games. With it, we can 'fund' some QEC for our use, but actually learn the Prothean advances in that area from their Beacon Network, whose creation is probably stored inside of the Atheme Beacon. In fact, considering that the Beacons interface directly with a being's brain, instead of through audio and video receptors, it could be the 'key' to our future mind-computer interfaces.".
There's even more potential here than one might realize. Just consider this: how does our vision work? Photons reach the eye, which translate them into signals and send them into the brain, where they are processed as information. But what if the signals were sent by something like carbon nanotube nerves (or other nanomaterial) one meter away? Then, one kilometer away or on the other side of the planet? And what if they were sent from another Star System, using two chips of Quantum Entangled Particles to bridge the spatial gap? Couldn't the brain see the other System in real time? And, finally, what if we linked one of those chips to a superintelligent "AI" and the other chip to our suit of armor, interfacing with cameras, sensors and drone controllers? Or directly with our mind…?
Hopefully, it was now clear how the Protheans' idea of using the Beacons and their tech just to send DMs faster was an awful waste of its potential. Obviously, we weren't going do that. I had a lot of ideas for other uses of something like this, which would be revealed at more opportune times. By the way, I named this concept Quantum Bridging – QB. This was before I'd learned that Mass Effect: Andromeda had already sorta made it into "lore" (just look up how the SAM+Pathfinder link works), though I think I'll do a bit better on that front.
"I don't have an opinion either way.", said Thane. "All names are fine to me.".
"The third name is funny, and catchy. I like it!", Liara said, then muttered quietly. "Although I can't help but get the feeling you're not telling us something…".
With the support of the cache of tech we'd get and an entire Capital-class Reaper corpse, we are set to be successful even going at it half-heartedly. On the other hand, we can openly get and develop a lot of stuff without much of an eyelid. I mean, who would find it strange that a media/comms company is interested in QEC (Quantum Entanglement Communications), that a biotech company wants to learn about the genes of many species or that a weapons company working on biotic implants is buying cybernetic tech? And how could anyone figure out that the QEC will be used to develop a very minor form of distributed consciousness, that the biotech company is using the DNA of those species to "perfect" supersoldiers with gene-therapy and nanites or that the top-grade weapons company is on its way to create mind-computer interfaces to control technology itself?
"Anyway, regardless of the name, I think we should go through with the idea of creating the companies. They give us a nice cover, a way to openly hire talented people and relative freedom to develop our tech. At least, that's going to be true at the starting phases, until research hits a certain level of achievement, becomes 'company secrets/proprietary tech' and continues on some hidden labs.", I offered a suggestion on how to go about it, but it'd still require full understanding of the galactic legal, political and economical situation, and careful planning. It was a good thing I was planning on recruiting a lot of talented folk to help with that. "Besides all the credits it'll give us, all of the research will be 'invested' into a Private Military Company (PMC), who we'll just happen to find, get impressed by and hire for 'protection', publicly speaking, but will act as our hand. Borrowing from our previous talk about the next generation of warriors, I think the name Hell's Angels is quite fitting. I actually considered Heaven's Devils, but it'd probably not sell the idea of 'Angels of War' as well. After all, from Hell's Heart we'll stab at the Reapers!".
Finally, there was a long pause. Everyone was gathering their thoughts or thinking about everything we talked about until now. It was only a minute later that I heard the question that I knew would come the moment I shared the future with our archeologist.
"What are we going to do about Saren and… my mother?", Liara asked, expectation and hope clearly shown in her face.
"You want to save her, right?", Thane asked emphatically. At this moment, he knew very well what it meant to know that you were going to lose someone precious in the future and it could be prevented.
"Despite all of our disagreements, she is still my mother.", she replied with an expression of sadness. "I don't wish any harm to come to her, especially indoctrination.".
"Before that, need to determine if will change 'main events'.", Mordin pointed out. "Could have dire ramifications.".
"But if we don't change things, mother and all of her followers will be turned into slaves and die!", Liara retorted, almost shouting. "We can prevent that.".
"Will lose foreknowledge advantage. Might result in bigger tragedy.", Mordin counted.
"What's your opinion, Sam?", Thane interrupted them and turned to me. "What should we do? Change things or not?". The other also stopped bickering and looked at me.
"Who said anything about blindly following the 'script'? We can have Benezia on our side, but pretending to be on Saren's, all the while just feeding him some information and giving some little inconsequential help. Maybe we can have her pretend to be indoctrinated by some artifact to help the ruse. I know there's one in Aequitas…", I settled their dispute just like that. "In fact, not long after Eden Prime is attacked, we should contact the 'true' Geth and get their assistance against the 'Old Machines'. That way, a lot of future issues can be resolved, like the Quarian-Geth war, the return of Quarians to their homeworld, all of this while getting a very powerful force on our side. I even thought up a name for this whole operation: Project Keelah Se'lai.".
Their expressions brightened and, already, I could see their minds working overtime to come up with more "schemes/pranks" to screw Saren and his master.
"You see, you guys are looking at it from the wrong angle. The whole Saren chase is one interconnected puzzle solving, each piece leading to the MacGuffin.", I explained, faking a cough! "I mean, the Conduit. It all started with Nazara trying to send the keeper's signal, which failed because of the Protheans. Then, the bastard started investigating covertly why that happened, which led him to find information about Ilos. He couldn't access any terminal with the location of the place, so he needed a pawn, an organic one, which could interface with Prothean Beacons. Saren fit the bill just fine, being the delusional racist that he is. That's why he goes after the Prothean Beacon on Eden Prime, the Cipher for Prothean 'understanding' on Feros, the Rachni Queen for Ilos's location on Noveria and a cloned army primed for invasion on Virmire. We just need to make sure those happen one way or another.".
"Of course! Manipulate cause and effect. Let orignal events play out, but on our terms.", the Professor quickly deduced what I meant. "Allow Saren access to necessary key elements for progression. Stall as much as possible. Remove as many innocents from the process as we can. Still arrive at same conclusion. Battle of the Citadel still occurs. Reapers still delayed. Will only make way to the galaxy much later!".
"Exactly! We divide those elements (Cipher, Ilos's location and Noveria's army) into carefully designed 'plays', but make sure that the key information gets into the bad guy's hand after some effort. Trick Saren into thinking he achieved something by his own merits, when the truth is that we 'fed' him those 'plot points' in a reasonable timetable.", I summed up the idea. "That way, we don't lose the advantage of foreknowledge whilst still saving as many people as we can. It's better than derailing the entire situation and, for instance, having to deal with Nazara going crazy, like deciding to wipe out a highly populated colony or a poorly defended homeworld to create fear (something they like to do), or having the Reapers start to come here immediately. Remember: if we can stretch the events of 'Mass Effect 1' three or four months more, that's how much extra time we bought to prepare things 'in the background', because the armada only comes after Sovereign's failure/death.".
"So, Benezia would be a double-agent?", Thane inquired.
"Something like that.", I replied.
"Ha, Mother can make someone like Saren run around in circles.", Liara said with a smile. Or was it a grin? Anyways… "The only uncertainty is if Nazera would be fooled by her, but I don't think it's a problem as long as she doesn't get inside the ship.".
"With your mother's support, we'll be able to do a lot of things faster. And more quietly.", I pointed out. "We can have her fund the excavation on Eden Prime to dig out 'Prothy the Prothean'. He's a trollish bastard, but will understand the need for secrecy and will help us. Perhaps we can even get hanar support through him.".
"What more can we do in the meanwhile?", Liara asked.
Gathering my thoughts, I began talking with them about some other "minor" plans to put into action. For example, we'd help Zaeed Massani kill Vido Santiago and reform the Blue Suns, which we could then use to deal with slavers and pirates, and slowly take over the Terminus Systems. During these 13 years, we'd make that region of space our "backyard", utilizing its chaotic and "lawless" nature to hide an ever growing "Shadow Empire", maybe even securing The Pirate Queen's help. At the same time, we'd work towards removing Reaper artifacts (perhaps by looking for religious sites and cults, such as Temple Palaven and Valluvian Priests). But not systematically, otherwise we'd alert Nazara. Unfortunately, we couldn't help the krogan rebuild their civilization for now. The Council would get in the way. But we could work with Wrex from time to time and give help indirectly, especially as the Shadow Broker.
In "taking over" the Terminus, even quietly, we'd inevitably get into conflict with batarians. I had something special planned for the blight that was the Batarian Hegemony. We'd slowly hang a noose around its neck, helping the Alliance defeat them in the "canonical" events related to the Skyllian Verge. After they closed their embassy, we could start targeting their "assets" in the Terminus Systems, killing all pirates and slavers, freeing the slaves and getting them back on their feet under our care, all the while seizing as many ships as we could along the way. That'd remove a good portion of their "unofficial fleets". Later, we'd get rid of the Hegemony for good, especially with the Geth's help, promote a better government in its place and deal with the threat of the Leviathan of Dis.
They all nodded. Besides all the slaves we can rescue, it would not be wise to leave the entire population of the Batarians as a force that the Reapers can make their own. We'll be dealing with many enemies as it is.
"...get someone to Veles. There's a hidden anchorage of the ancient krogan warlord Moro there with many records and artifacts of the Krogan Rebellions.", I suggested to them, remembering this tidbit of info and hoping it'd give us some additional credits. "And, finally, we should keep an eye out for any hints of an attack on Mindoir, maybe by sending a few agents to look for unusual movements from the criminals that usually operate close to it. Batarian slavers will hit that place hard soon, slaughtering most of the colonists, which will include Shepard's friends and family. We can't let that happen!".
"Oh, we can alert the Alliance when the time comes.", Liara said.
"Alert? Remember that we are the Shadow Broker now! We'll sell the information to them, otherwise they might even suspect foul play.", I had to remind her. This wasn't that edgy Liara we got during ME2. "However, we can't only count on that. I'll go there with Thane to make sure that, in the worst case scenario, at least Shepard's people will make it out alive. We can contact and inform Samara about the attack too. She'll probably help, because of her Justicar code, and we can recruit her there.".
One thing that was very important was to inspire Shepard to join the military. Some would say the tragedy of Mindoir is what set her on her course, but I say something like that wasn't required at all. After all, the other two "origins" (Earthborn and Spacer) had none of it. And unraveling fate is what I was all about. Still, one can never be too confident things will go as planned when changing the past, so we'd go there to make sure.
"We have been talking for a long while now.", Thane cut in. "That is a lot of information to pass onto a new core member.".
"Good thing we have Liara here with us. All it takes is a mindmeld in order to pass all the information we just talked about.", I pointed out. "Kasumi Goto, for instance. She will be invaluable for stealthy ops. Matriarch Benezia will be able to help us make a copy or, at the very least, grab the Prothean VI 'Vendetta', with all of the tech left behind in the Beacon. With her help, Kasumi will probably be able to sneak in and get the data from under the asari's nose. It's not like they are 'utilizing' him properly anyway…".
Liara looked to be a bit disturbed at thought of the Prothean meddling in her race's evolution. She tried not to show it, but we could still see it. However, it was much less than her "canon" overreaction, since she had a lot more stuff to think about and one of them wasn't seeing her homeworld being destroyed by the Reapers right in front of her.
"She is a thief, right? One of the best?", Thane asked and I nodded. "How are we going to get her… cooperation at first?".
"I think Liara will be able to help with that. She can pass a 'smaller' quantity of information about the Reapers and her 'future', which includes her boyfriend's, Keiji Okuda, death at the hands of Donovan Hock.", I suggested to them. "With that, I don't think it'd be hard to recruit them to our cause. Then, after Liara makes up with her mother, the four of you will plan things out about the Athame Beacon on Thessia.".
Liara shifted a bit more at yet another mention of the Athame Beacon. I could tell she was a little uncomfortable with the other side of the situation: that the asari had been hypocritically hiding that cache of tech and that her mother didn't tell her about the VI. She sulked a little, being mostly angry at Benezia for letting her search for answers that were so close.
"Mother must think I was a fool!", spat Liara.
"No, not at all.", I denied her declaration. "I believe she was just shielding her 'little wing' because the penalties for hoarding Prothean tech are rather stiff. If anything, now you have an opportunity to make up with her.".
"That... could really be it. Thanks! That's it then. I'll stay one more day to receive the rest of your memories and then go back to Thessia.", she didn't take much time to recover her spiritedness, but it shifted into a bit of darkness rather quickly. "I've.. huh, got to disable a timed message to my mother, so that she doesn't freak out.".
Oh, so our dear archeologist actually left a backup plan in case we were bad guys… Yeah, it wasn't a fluke that she became the Shadow Broker in the original timeline.
"I also must return to my family and siha.", Thane added. "She will probably be happy after hearing the news about our new 'financial situation'. Well, she was always supportive.". He then turned to Liara and asked: "Maybe we can leave together?".
Afterwards, everyone went their way to think about our discussion and to do their part of the work. Liara stayed with us one more day, which was used to get the rest of the "details" and to pass the "main story" to Thane and Mordin through melding. Damn, that ability was really cheating. And the Prothean version was even more outrageous. One day later, she took a shuttle (not the Veshok-16) with Thane, and I almost had to play Shadow Broker by myself, because Mordin was simply too preoccupied digging through old human theories, equations and schematics, and thinking how to turn my ideas into reality. Not much time later, Thane came back, no worries impeding him anymore.
It was also then that began what I affectionately called "the month of torture". Thane and Mordin devised an "Angel of War" training regimen for me that, well, looked like it came straight from Satan. When I mentioned this to them, they laughed, saying that it was good, because it'd make me a real "Hell's Angel". At least I got some better, military grade gene mods for now. They were an overall improvement and Mordin guaranteed that they would not conflict with anything new we might come up with, but it'd still take time for the effects to start showing, which only made me more intent on fully supporting this line of research. You know, it's crazy how much return you can get by funding science…
However, the interesting thing was that the Professor looked even worse than me after the daily training. And I never saw him sleeping, though salarians only needed 1 hour of it. We started to worry about the guy. At least I did. But he assured us that everything was fine. He was getting enough sleep.
Looking at each one of them doing their part, still not realizing how much of an impact it'd have in the galaxy, I began thinking back to what someone once said to me about stories. He was another fanfic writer, BJHanssen, who I had the pleasure of talking with back "home". He proposed that stories should be a two-way street: the protagonist acts on the world and, in turn, the world acts on the protagonist. The "world", however, is big and the more you try to make it bend in the direction you want it to take, the more it resists bending. I've thought about it a lot. Do you know what my solution to this conundrum was? Try to get more people to bend it, of course! When a good chunk of the galaxy is on your side, it's much easier to do it. However, I was prepared to face a lot of opposition during this decade and a bit. After all, as a guy once said, "If you want to make enemies, try to change something.". And we'd be changing a lot of things…
During that month, we also reorganized the Broker's forces, cut out some less savory parts of his operation and started investing/taking over some companies that I knew would make it big in the future, case in point the makers of the future Mercenary armor, Ariake Technologies. Plus, Mordin bought a lot of stuff for his research.
I also received a very surprised message from Sha'ira talking about how she was given "free access" to the Shadow Broker Network's information because of her "willingness to help protect the galaxy", not hinting that it was because of me. It was important to mention that all of our calls and conversations were made through channels even more secure than most governments out there. We then "hooked up" the Consort's connections with our own and sent her some information about the Reapers that the former Broker had found and some of our plans, with a timer to delete the data after a while, just enough time for her to read it all, but with no possibility of making a copy.
Not that she would do something stupid like leak the information, of course. Sha'ira knew very well not to do things without consulting us first and/or that anyone she ever met could be a sleeper agent for the Reapers. On a more light note, she helped us with registering our new companies and I was already looking at some resumes and media to (re)publish. Besides that, a few remasters and remakes would not hurt. People call Wrex best murder turtle, but could you imagine something like Teenage Mutant Ninja Krogans? Ha!
Liara also reunited with her mother, though I only learned of the details much later. They also managed to contact and recruit both Kasumi and Keiji later. The plan to get "Vendetta" was a go, but would probably need more than a month to execute, since we needed to find a "key" to activate the Beacon in the first place.
It was in the fifth week that things really got serious. Thane intercepted plans for a batarian slaver raid in a particular human colony. There was no need for words between us about which colony would be hit. All the information about it was dug out, carefully packaged and prepared to be "sold" to the Alliance at the "perfect" time.
And Mordin finally ended his seclusion, showing us all of the results of his crazy marathon of research. The slavers would make for the perfect testing specimens…
As for me? No more training to do.
It was time to meet The Shepard.
Author's Notes: And there it is, the last part of the necessary setup. Hopefully, this will give a solid enough [Foundation] for what's coming later. Keep in mind that these are the most important changes of over a decade of preparation and my way of "establishing" the rules of the Universe (aka how it works on a fundamental level). Maybe I'll come back here later and, taking Bisaster's suggestion, put those dense explanations on [Codex Entry] type of sections, though I try to steer clear of those, due to my personal experience of those usually having "Random High Numbers syndrome" or just being technobabble galore. It'll depend on the feedback.
No inspiration for a specific music on this chapter. Maybe something from Stellaris would fit.